Nelson Riddle's jazzy hit theme was just fading out as Tod Stiles and a dozing Linc Case wheeled their way into Tampa's Causeway Inn in Stiles' 1964 Corvette. For Tod and Linc--alias Martin Milner and Glen Corbett--the Causeway Inn represented the end of the road. It was [where the] unique CBS television program Route 66 played out its final episode in two parts, with the second half of "Where There's A Will There's a Way" airing on the evening of March 13, 1964.
For four seasons, beginning in late 1960, Route 66 had carried American television audiences on a journey over the length and breadth of this country. What made the show unique was that nearly all episodes were filmed on location. The adventures of Tod Stiles and Buz Murdock, later replaced by Linc Case, were not staged on back lots or in studios. Everyone--actors, the director, the crew, their families--all travelled from site to site, setting up to film in the towns the scripts were written for.
"We trucked everything from place to place," remembered production manager Sam Manners, "and when Route 66 visited a city it was a big event--like the circus coming to town. In four years on the road we never paid for a hotel and rarely paid for meals." During those four years, the Route 66 troupe filmed 116 episodes, sometimes working 16 hours a day, six days a week, travelling from Savannah, Georgia, to Cascade, Oregon; from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Cleveland, Ohio; from Butte, Montana, to Tampa, Florida. All but one episode appeared on CBS network television. Number 101, "I'm Here to Kill a King," about a political assassin, ironically was scheduled to appear the night of November 22, 1963. Network officials respectfully canceled that episode following John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas earlier that day.
Producer Herb Leonard and writer Stirling Silliphant, who were responsible for Naked City, created Route 66 in the spring of 1959. The two came up with an idea to pair a poor kid from the streets with a wealthy preppie and then worked that storyline into a Naked City plot. Playing the part of the street kid was a young actor Leonard remembered from an earlier Naked City episode--George Maharis.
Once the "mini-plot" was aired, work began immediately on "Black November," Route 66's pilot episode. Although the show's "on-location" status, an industry first, was important to Silliphant, "Black November", meant to happen in the fictitious town of Garth, Alabama, was actually filmed in Concord, Kentucky, because a suitable site in Alabama could not be found. This was one of the few instances Route 66 was not shot at the advertised location, fictional or otherwise. Completed in February 1960, the Route 66 pilot was then purchased by CBS.
"Black November" established the premise for the Route 66 adventures, briefly explaining how George Maharis' character, Buz Murdock, "the poor street-wise kid from New York," teamed up with the son of his boss, Tod Stiles, who worked with Buz at the Stiles family shipping business during summer vacations away from prep school. Tod's dad then dies, the business fails and the two, both with no family left, then set out to see the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet, this one being the 1960 Corvette Tod inherited from his father.
Leonard originally envisioned the two travelling in a Ferrari, but decided a domestic car better fit the show's theme. Chevrolet was more than happy to supply a brand new example. Each year. While accepting how young Tod ended up with his father's Corvette following his death was easy enough, no explanation was ever given as to how he continued to find a new model every 12 months. Ah, the wonders of television.
As for the role of Tod Stiles, Leonard initially pared candidates down to two--Martin Milner and "a good-looking kid with some stage experience." While Milner had television experience, his rival had very little. "We liked him," Leonard later recalled, "but he had a tendency to scream every time he got emotional." Milner was chosen over the "good-looking kid", Robert Redford to you.
Redford later made various guest appearances on the show, as did many other well-recognized stars: Gene Hackman, George Kennedy, Robert Duvall, Alan Alda, Rod Steiger, Suzanne Pleshette, Joey Heatherton, Martin Sheen, James Brown, Lon Chaney, Jr., Soupy Sales, and Rin Tin Tin to name just a few. Many made encore appearances, some more than once.
Starring as well with Tod and Buz were those new Corvettes, beginning with a Horizon Blue 1960 model, followed by a Fawn Beige example in 1961. Each succeeding Corvette used on the show was brown. Maharis himself also drove a black Corvette away from work, courtesy of the show's main sponsor. He first opted for a fuel-injected model, but the sometimes harsh realities of life on backroad America changed his mind. Local small-town garages more often than not were unable to service the fuelie, convincing him to switch to a carbureted Corvette in 1961. A family man with his wife and kids along during location shoots, Milner passed on Corvettes, each year opting instead for a new Chevy station wagon.
On television, however, Milner was right there behind a Corvette's wheel ever week delivering into our living rooms pieces of backroad America that have all since but disappeared. In Maharis' words, back then "The country had flavor," "You could drive 60 or 70 miles and find small towns with individual characteristics. Today, everything looks the same." Route 66 made a sincere effort to capture that flavor and feed it to viewers, many of whom would never taste it for themselves. So what if reality was stretched a bit. As Milner put it, " think we inspired a lot of people, but it was a fantasy. You couldn't just drive into a town and get a good job the way we did," Maybe so, but what was wrong with a little fantasy once a week?
Apparently American television watchers didn't mind. By its third season, Route 66 had become a true ratings winner. The show "could have run for years," according to Leonard. "The people at Chevrolet and I had been discussing taking Tod and Buz to Europe after the fourth season. Route 66 could have been the first American series shot abroad." Instead, I Spy captured that honor as Route 66 fell by the wayside.
Problems began when Maharis contracted hepatitis early during third season filming. Then word got out that he was squabbling over his contract. Milner was forced to appear alone as a recovering Maharis and network officials battled. Meanwhile, Buz Murdock's absence was not explained over the air as hopes for Maharis' return continued. Silliphant never did write an end to Buz, "because we all felt [Maharis] might come to his senses and return to the show." He never did.
In his place, Silliphant eventually introduced Linc Case, fresh from a military stint, as Tod's new companion. Initially, Leonard had just the man for the job--Burt Reynolds. "But he didn't want to be any actor's replacement," said Leonard, who then chose Glen Corbett.
"Glen was a great guy," remembered Sam Manners," and he tried very hard, but he just didn't have it."
"We knew when George left the show it was over," added Leonard, "but we had our audience and the sponsor renewed us for the next season. Eventually, though, the audience got bored. It's really sad, when you think about the show's potential."
"It would be very hard today to duplicate what he did on Route 66", said Silliphant. "We were able to show the American character. The fact we were all over the map, with all kinds of people in every kind of situation, gave us a special richness. That would be difficult to show today since the country has become so homogenized--it's all Holiday Inns and freeways. Tod and Buz might not find the road so exciting anymore."
They'd also have a rough time finding what's left of the real Route 66, still the epitome of American backroads.